The Blocks Box (or Bin, nowadays, to be technical) developed over the years as our ‘playings’ (imaginative adventures with toys) developed into ‘set-ups’, basically dioramas or still-lifes made to show off a scene with action figures. The Blocks Box is named after the 55+ year-old blocks that we used to build walls or castles with, often (when we were smaller) ending an adventure with a clattering, smashing crescendo. We still have most of those blocks, darkened with age and years of handling, but they serve as a mere framework for set-ups, having been supplemented over the years by various large props, molded backgrounds, and display features, including grass and trees from little animal sets. That being said, I must add that it has been years since I’ve had a real set-up; perhaps my last such diorama was a presentation replica of Bag End from The Lord of the Rings.
Wunsapunsatime, I made what was basically a board game with ‘little animals’ (as we called all molded plastic figures, be they beast or human; in this case most of them were knights), using the blocks as steps and plastic bases (like the ones from old model kits) as ‘stages’. Each stage was guarded by a foe, and as each hero advanced, he could beat the foe and have it join his company, or he could lose and be detained at the stage (until he rolled a saving number) while the other player’s hero raced him to the finish line. If the heroes and their companies landed on the same block, they would duke it out using dice. ‘Allies’ could die and be removed from the board, but the hero survived so the race could continue until there was a clear winner. The novelty, of course, was how three-dimensional it all was. I think I might still have a crude chart somewhere in the Files, illustrating how it was all laid out.
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